Family and Lasting Friendships: Relation 4

Photo: Boripat

Uncle Boripat and his little niece take a selfie together smilingly. Her nickname is Cake; Uncle B calls her Cupcake. Like a seasoned Hollywood actress, Cake can express emotions on demand. Tell her to smile, she smiles. Ask her to frown, she frowns. Cake likes cats, ducks, and bears; especially when they are cartoonishly cute. She is an indefatigable toddler full of quick energy and lively pizzazz. She likes to laugh out loud.

Her hobbies include drawing things; which, to the untrained eye, might just seem like scribbles on paper, but to a master of abstraction, her doodles are appreciated as modern expressionism. Once a drawing has been completed, Cake will call your attention, in order so that you may marvel at her work, and accompany the verbal flowers with sounds of claps. If you fail to notice her summons, however, she will continue to stare at you until you realize you have been negligent, which makes you feel very guilty, and thus applaud even louder to her absolute delight.

Cake gets along famously with the affable Cornelius, a cat in my bourgeois neighborhood. On the other hand, Duchess, the aristo-cat of the commune, is always a little evidently frightened by the child’s bombastic tones, capriciousness, and sometimes rough enthusiasm. Indeed, it is thus no surprise that Duchess is always wide awake and on alert during playtime; which for Cake, is all the time that is not spent sleeping.